


i want so bad to feel steady

by starlight_sugar



Category: Neoscum (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, based on Alice Isn't Dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-21 14:32:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17045480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlight_sugar/pseuds/starlight_sugar
Summary: This is why he knew that Max didn’t die when he disappeared. (An Alice Isn't Dead AU.)





	i want so bad to feel steady

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is part of the AUcember series, a self-made challenge where I try to write a new AU one-shot every day. You can read all of the AUcember fics in the collection linked above.
> 
> This is based loosely on Alice Isn't Dead, and by "loosely" I mean "I listened to the first season a couple of years ago and cannot really confirm if this is accurate at all."
> 
> With infinite, endless, permanent gratitude to Tam, who suggested this a few days ago. (They don't listen to either show. They're just cool like that.)
> 
> The title of this fic comes from [Alice](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGppQmM88d8) by Winnetka Bowling League.

“So,” Dak says, “where are you from?”

The guy in the passenger seat doesn’t really say anything, which is kind of par for the course. He’s barely said a word since Dak picked him up on the side of the road. But he does shift in his seat where he’s looking out the window, which Dak takes as a sign that he can keep going.

“Me, I’m from Chicago.” He drops his right hand and leans back to rest his elbow on the center console. “Big city! All the people, all the things happening. Thought I was gonna have a life there. Thought I was gonna do okay.”

Passenger Seat, who still hasn’t given Dak a name, curls in a little on himself. He seems like a nice guy, all considered. Sweet, round face. Nice beard. Old hoodie. Beat up sneakers, the kind that look like they’ve been worn pretty much every day since the guy bought him. He smells like… something weird, something specific, and his hair is covered in oil.

There are also tears streaked down his cheeks. Dak didn’t ask about that.

“I tried,” he continues, because hell, if he’s got someone there, he might as well talk. “I really did, you know? But you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him… settle down. That’s the thing about settling down, is it doesn’t just happen. It’s a choice you gotta make every day, to be settled in, and I got tired of making the choice. And so I went back to the road!” He lifts his hand, wiggles his fingers towards the magic emptiness of California. “Where I always belonged.”

The guy doesn’t respond, and Dak lets his hand drop to the wheel. “I got lucky, though. A lot of people never find anything or anyone they love the way I love this road. I’ve seen some great things out here. Some horrible things, but some great things.”

And then, a miracle: the guy says something. It’s muffled because his mouth is against his elbow which is against the window, but Dak can hear him answer.

“Gotta speak up, buddy,” Dak says cheerfully, adjusting the brim of his cap. “We’re all about open communication here! And by open I mean the kind of thing you can understand easily, all things considered.”

The guy props his chin on top of his elbow, still facing the window. “I said, mostly horrible things.”

Dak glances at him. He sees the bruises on the guy’s arms now, the way one of his hands is resting on his fanny pack like he’s protecting something. The reflection of his eyes in the mirror, not like he’s just staring out the window but like he’s watching.

“Oh,” Dak says quietly. “You mean the thistle men.”

 

#

 

People tend to assume that Dak is stupid.

Which, okay, it’s not like they’re wrong, by some ways of measuring smartness. Dak can’t do math much harder than figuring out how much gas he needs to get. He can read, but it’s not easy, because he gets letters and words backwards more than he gets them right.

But he can drive. He can drive faster than most truckers, and he’s done this job for a long, long time. He knows how to get shipments where they’re going.

He’s also good with people, which nobody ever seems to expect. They think he doesn’t pay attention, but really, he just knows what’s worth paying attention to. Someone’s favorite food or favorite color is nice to know, sure, but it’s nicer to know when a friendly hand on the shoulder is going to be that missing piece to helping them relax. It’s nicer to know that someone really needs one less thing to worry about, so that he can offer them leftover food or a ride home from work or things. He’s not good at social rules, but he’s good at reading people.

This is why he knew that Max didn’t die when he disappeared.

Granted, it’s not like Dak saw the kid that often. He got a job straight out of high school, saving up for his sister’s medical bills and for college and for whatever the hell else he wanted. Dak had some money set aside, too, because he always had a soft spot for those kids. Especially Max.

And then Max had vanished one day. At first people thought he ran away, but Dak knew he wouldn’t. That kid wouldn’t leave his sister for anything less than the most important thing in the world, anything less than her absolute safety. But he’d also known that Max hadn’t died.

His family ushered him to support group after support group, and after a while Dak stopped saying he knew Max was still alive. The kid was eighteen, he was young and it was tragic and whatever the hell else people wanted him to think, but sometimes people disappear and die. Sometimes people die.

The part that Dak won’t tell strangers in the passenger seat of his truck just yet is: settling down is a choice, but chasing after the ghost of your sister’s kid when you see his face on a national news segment is a choice, too. And hell, it’s hardly a choice to make.

 

#

 

The passenger calls himself Tech Wizard, which Dak’s not about to question because it’s hardly the weirdest name he’s ever heard. He’s also from Chicago, and he doesn’t want to talk about it. And the thistle men killed his parents when he was four years old.

(“I didn’t call them thistle men,” Tech says, after Dak explains what exactly a thistle man is. They’re men, sort of, but they’re… wrong. They eat people, for one thing. They walk kind of like marionettes with a stick up their ass and half the strings cut, for another. And they smell weird, which Dak hopes he’ll never remember again, because he never wants to be that fucking close to them.

“What did you call them?” Dak asks, curious despite himself.

Tech shrugged. “Nightmares, mostly.”)

He’s trying to get out of California. Which is a coincidence, because Dak is trying to get out of California. Specifically, he’s trying to drive his shipment to Kentucky, and if they take the right route that takes them through Colorado. Through where Tech says his parents died.

They stop for the night in northern Nevada, somewhere in the desert where nobody is going to bother them. Dak takes them to a truck stop and Tech doesn’t complain, just rubs a little more of the oil into his hair as he sets up shop in the back of Xanadu.

“What’s with the oil?” Dak asks by way of conversation, because he’s no expert but he’s pretty sure you’re supposed to keep your hair from getting oily.

“Heather oil.” Tech holds up a little bottle of it. “Keeps the thistle men away. Don’t know why, but I always carry some on me. My nana taught me to.”

“Your nana?”

“And it works.”

Dak nods. “You got enough to share?” He holds out a hand, palm up.

Tech taps a couple of drops out of the bottle into Dak’s hand. “What I’m doing is overkill,” he says, a little sheepishly. “That’s enough that if you slap them it’ll sting.”

“If I slap someone, I want it to sting.” Dak winks, and Tech inexplicably blushes. “So now you’re, what, roaming the country looking for thistle men to sting with your hair?”

“Not really,” Tech says, although he doesn’t sound upset by how grossly Dak has misestimated what his life is all about. “I just got tired of being one place. But I couldn’t do this without trying to… to… protect myself.”

He’s lying, at least a little bit. But it doesn’t sound like he’s lying about any of the important parts, so Dak lets it go. “What are you going to do if you find them?”

Tech goes still. He’s sitting on Dak’s futon, wearing a pair of Dak’s sweatpants that are too short on him, wearing the same hoodie that he was wearing when Dak found him. He doesn’t look vulnerable but he looks like he belongs, and like he doesn’t know what to do when he feels like he belongs.

“I don’t know,” Tech says at last. “But I’m gonna make it fucking hurt.”

Dak barks out a laugh at that and sinks down onto the futon next to him. “You and me both, my dude,” he says, and Tech half-smiles at that. “Let me fucking tell you, I’m ready to give those thistle men some hell when we find ‘em.”

“You’re looking for them?”

“Not them.”

“Someone?”

“My sister’s kid,” Dak says, and hell, he wasn’t expecting to bring this up, but he’ll see it through. “Max.”

“He’s missing?”

“Disappeared about five years ago.”

“And you think you’re gonna find him?”

“I think-” Dak exhales, as measured as he can make it. “I gotta try, you know?”

“It’s a choice,” Tech says softly. When Dak turns, he’s looking at him like he understands. Like he, more than any other person in Dak’s whole life, understands why Dak uprooted his life and his relationship to try and find a ghost of Max in the wind. “And you made your choice.”

Tech doesn’t look too surprised when Dak reaches a hand out and hooks it behind his neck, but he still breathes in sharply before Dak’s lips meet his. He smells like heather, so much that it’s overwhelming. He also tastes not like heather but like essential oil, and it’s kind of gross, honestly. But his mouth is slick and warm against Dak’s, and his lips part into a sigh as Dak kisses him.

“That was a choice, too,” Dak says, more or less mumbling against Tech’s mouth. “Thought we could use it.”

“You thought right,” Tech says, and then he’s kissing Dak again. Because even if the rest of the world is open and terrifying and full of thistle men and things Dak can’t understand, they can still have this. They can have heather oil and each other, a shield against the danger.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on Tumblr and Twitter @waveridden!


End file.
